I don't think it will be that long myself... in any case, I would definitely hold off paying for any dongle-based solution unless you have money to burn of course. Last I checked the initial price of $45 is now an insane $99 for something that should be free to the scene in the first place.

Also +Rep to TDMaster and Score12 I have promoted the news to the main page as well and below is a roughly translated interview with Mathieulh on the SELF format vulnerability for those curious via ps3-addict.fr/forum/interview-exclusive-mathieulh-t4829.html

Q) Mathieulh Hello, could you give us your curriculum vitae to inform our members about your person?

A) I reserve the use of my curriculum vitae for professional purposes. I can assure you that the skills are well supplied.

Q) We saw you participate in the PSP scene and PS3, both consoles from Sony, is there a particular reason (affinité. ..)? Do you have another platform fetish (S2 Galaxy Android …)?

A) I’ve just been seduced by these two platforms, especially the fact that few details are revealed, including the technical side, which increases the challenge, I’m actually more interested in understanding the system architecture of as a platform to play, although I’m actually a player myself. As for the Galaxy S2, I am also very interested, but in a fun and in the development or reverse engineering.

Q) You think that should contain the essential toolkit for the perfect little hacker … apart from a brain (hardware / software)?

A) A computer course, a disassembler (like IDA, for example), a logic analyzer, if you’re more focused hardware, a good knowledge of programming and reverse engineering (assembleur. ..), do not be afraid to take risks with its material, if possible have the means to debug the code analyzing / reverse. Maybe more

Q) You seem detached from the bad comments that can move in relation to what you told past that did not result in a release that’s all to your honor! But are not you tempted to make them close their “valve” release by posting a “legal”?

A) Not really, I have already posted or participated in enough releases in my life (M33 Custom Firmware, Pandora, PSGroove (open source release of the exploit PSJailbreak + full documentation) Documentation of cryptography .self / update packages, Key appldr + lv2ldr, Documentation and keys for the packages of games, QA flag (even if this release was a leak, it is still my work), use of SPE8, Kirk key to sign the PSP applications. .. and many others I have forgotten) as well as on the stage PSP PS3 to get a great respect for my peers.

I have little esteem for ungrateful users who claim more than what they are free provided and have a tendency to chronic amnesia when it comes to remembering what developers have done for them. More people are demanding of me the results, insult me when they do not match their expectations … I find myself less inclined to provide the fruits of my labor to the public. I do not grow to be known, for money or any other reason like this, I develop curiosity to understand how security systems have been developed on a given platform, and also to meet the challenge to find flaws in these platforms, consoles lend themselves very well as they are developed with safety systems of a military level, including the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

So I personally have no interest in putting my work available to the public except that a spirit of sharing, when the public says abuse of my work and my kindness, I feel no remorse whatsoever have to suspend my releases. I think this case is also in good numbers of developers like myself do not feel the slightest interest to initiate backups or other on any platform whatsoever. This is one reason that caused them to stop my releases, would be another good reason to avoid a possible lawsuit from Sony.

Q) We’ll still see quite active on the IRC chan Gitbrew, Twitter, or even reactive to certain news, why not have continued to participate fully in the scene?

A) Despite having stopped the public release, this does not prevent me from continuing my work for personal and educational, to be an astute observer, and to help other developers who need it. This happening, and I attend some developers in their work without requiring any credit in return (including via IRC or MSN) and post comments on my Twitter when the opportunity arises.

Q) Could you tell us more about one of your recent Tweets (über means “huge”): Mathieulh a écrit:@playstation #didyouknow that your self format is uber fail ? #morethanjustmy2cents.

A) This is a vulnerability that I discovered recently in the SELF format from Sony.

Q) Have you been able to exploit the flaw (lack of verification of the size of the header of an SCE SELF when copying the Local Shared Storage to the Local Isolated Storage) unveiled by yourself a while ago?

A) This fault is very difficult to implement and only works on certain loaders when one has direct control over the arguments sent to them. Nevertheless, there are other faults that have never been published.

Q) The rumor would like you to have the keys to decrypt games 3.60 / 3.65 / 3.66 / 3.70. Could you confirm?

A) I prefer to do without comments on this issue and leave the answer to your interpretation, the public has no need of these keys, you can downgrade to 3.55 (via hardware) almost all the PlayStation 3 out now (about 40 million consoles are vulnerable) and it is possible to run Linux (via otheros + +) or homebrew on their consoles, I think it is quite enough to make the PlayStation 3 one of the consoles the most open market .

Q) What do you think of the theory of DemonHades to find them?

A) This is a (very) bad summary of tweets I posted ago 6 months. It lacks many things, I doubt that more DemonHades has the capacity to retrieve the key question.

Q) With the information made available to hackers and without 3.6 + key, is it possible to sign an application that is functional in 3.70? If so, do you think it would lead to piracy again?

A) It is impossible to recover the private key of keysets used in firmwares 3.56 +, and, consequently, to sign applications for the latter, however, there is a way through the old keysets (0x0D below) to launch chokes on 3.56 + if you know how it is more possible to sign a custom firmware 3.60 + and install it over a 3.55 firmware provided you have the keys 3.60 + available.

Q) Many people are ungrateful and always want more, faster. Do you think this behavior penalizes the scene and drives away its actors? We recently had the right to leave the scene of ColdBird PSP.

A) I do think that this behavior scares many developers, myself included.

Q) Do you think the PS3 scene will continue to grow? Does it “good” players and good service to evolve peacefully?

A) Good actors can be, although many are gone, I am thinking of fail0verflow, or myself. The public good, I do not think so.

Q) What are your motivations in this scene? What projects would you like to see the birth?

A) I enjoy the challenge and the fact that no-one finds constantly new things, especially items hidden by Sony that are part of the operation of the PlayStation 3.

Q) Do you have ongoing projects in the same mold as the deceased or other project Utopia on PS3?

A) I have currently no plans of this type on PS3.

Q) Do you think the firmware higher than 3.55 are “jailbreak”? If so, do you think that a release could boost race dongles?

A) I do not think the 3.56 + firmwares are jailbroken through any USB dongle.

Q) What do you think of fleas and their future?

A) I think they will allow people to easily downgrade to firmware 3.55, their future is still mixed, at least until 3.60 + key becomes public.

Q) People are unhappy with the scene because the keys were not 3.6x + found / disclosed, what do you think of these people? Do you think it is good to be responsive to their expectations?

A) I think if they are unhappy, nothing prevents them to put them and retrieve these keys by themselves. I myself have published more than one method to recover them.

Q) A question somewhat out of order, if one ignores the old rumors, but here … As a former member of Team M33, would you have news about Dark_AleX?

A) I do not want to reveal too much without his consent, however, I can tell you he’s okay and that I am regularly in touch with him.

Q) Thank you for giving us this interview Mathieulh, we meet again on December 17?

A) Hmm … I may be taken at that time, I’m not sure how to go to CCC depends mainly my availability.

Indeed the price of BD burners is the main problem. The 25GB BDs can usually be found for $30 per 10 pack but the burners have not gone down in price in over a year, here at least. The cheapest ones I have ever seen have been $100 when on sale from $150ish.

Still, if using BDs was the only option I'd rather do that than use my original discs.